Coffee with Aristotle (Coffee with... S.) - Tapa dura

Not many people can claim to have invented a new science, but the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle invented two - zoology and logic. More than two millennia after his death, we are still influenced by Aristotelian thought. When we use words such as "potential" and "actual", "theory" and "practice", we are speaking Aristotle's language. Here, over coffee, he talks with refreshing and illuminating simplicity about everything from causation and deduction to the role of women and the wonders of the natural world in a pre-scientific age. True, he thought a queen bee was actually a king, but about many other matters he was right on the button!

Jonathan Barnes taught philosophy for four decades at the universities of Oxford, Geneva, and Paris. He is a Fellow of the British Academy. He has written numerous books on the early history of philosophy, the best known being Early Greek Philosophy and Aristotle. He lives in France.Julian Barnes is a writer of novels, short stories and essays. He has written ten novels - including Flaubert's Parrot, England, England and Arthur & George, which were all shortlisted for the Booker Prize.